Dragon Saladin Mk2 More Progress

Last night I glued the suspension parts in place, adjusted then left it overnight to cure. The result is a much better ride height on the model especially when you see it with the fenders on. The gap between the bottom of the fenders & top of the wheels looks just right. All the suspension parts are now fixed to the hull apart from the drive shafts and wheels. I'll be fixing the shafts in place but will leave the wheels off until final assembly. One point is that part B31 the rear torsion bar tube is far too long and protrudes beyond the rear plate. Nothing a saw and a new plastic disc for the end cap won't sort out though.

  
On to the fenders now and here I've scribed a line where the fenders join as on the real thing they are made up of two sections. I've also changed the lights as the kit supplied items are more in keeping with a 70's era vehicle. Earlier vehicles only had one stop light at the rear and one side light on the front. The kit items have indicators front and back Again easily sorted I just cut the rear top light off the cluster and made up two new brackets for the front lights. I also sanded off the molded light lenses on the rear as I will be using some clear ones later on. 

I also reworked the exhaust assembly as the kit item has a flat bottom edge. Checking my refs I noted that the outer portion is actually a shroud, the exhaust proper is inside this. The shroud is round so I built up the bottom with plastic card then sanded to the correct profile. I then cut out the exhaust opening and fitted a small angled strip to the front front plate. A sort of baffle was made up using scrap etch and added to the opening.
At the rear of the shroud I added a semi circle of scrap etch and edged this with thin lead wire as per my refs. The exhaust looks more like the real thing now and was not that hard to do.

 And lastly (phew!) whilst waiting for things to dry I've made a start on the turret. Looks pretty good so far!